Ocean Vuong e a vida entre fronteiras

o domínio das línguas como forma de criar um outro mundo

Abstract

Adapting to a life outside your place of origin. Making a home in a country that destroyed the world you were born into. Defending yourself from racism when whiteness leads power relations. Finding a kind of happiness-resilience in the face of poverty and violence. Fighting for yourself even though three generations of your family have been forced to work in semi-slavery regimes to survive. Being queer when there isn’t a word in your language that can define who you are. Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong recounts all of these experiences in the book “On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous”. Through an autofictional narrative, he writes letters to his illiterate mother and portrays how migration, queer experience, and the Vietnam War (or American War) affected his life and the lives of his family. Based on the connections between this literary work and texts by Gloria Anzaldúa, Achille Mbembe, Edward Said, Abdelmalek Sayad e Ana Tsing, this article aims to understand how Ocean Vuong uses language as a tool to live between borders, reconnect with family memories, assimilate the impacts caused by the Vietnamese conflicts, rebuild a world in ruins and discover beauty despite generational trauma.